The Work of the Refuge
1/15/22: Harvesting trees on The Refuge as part of the Adaptive Silviculture For Climate Change Research
Although the Friends of the Nulhegan are focused on the Nulhegan Basin Fish and Wildlife Refuge in Brunswick, Vermont, the staff at the Nulhegan headquarters are responsible not only for the Nulhegan Basin Refuge, but for all the Conte lands in VT and NH listed below. The locations of each Division or Unit can be seen in the map on the right.
Vermont:
Nulhegan Basin (Brunswick)
Putney Mountain Unit (Putney)
New Hampshire:
Blueberry Swamp Division (Columbia)
Fairgrounds Unit (Lancaster)
Pondicherry Division (Jefferson) (Friends of Pondicherry Refuge)
Saddle Island (Bath)
Mascoma Division (Lyme)
John Hay National Wildlife Refuge (Newbury)
The work being done on The Refuge is multi-faceted and wide-ranging, from road maintenance to collaborating with universities on research projects national in scope, with the numerous and varied projects often involving elements of a number of different categories.
Maintenance and Improvement of Infrastructure:
Forty plus miles of dirt roads, many culverts, and several bridges require constant monitoring and upkeep in order to facilitate public access as well as all of the other work of the Refuge. Trails must be kept accessible, and boardwalks and observation platforms for the public must be maintained and constructed as needed. Contracts must be sent out for bid and crews managed.
Habitat Management:
Refuge staff participated in the development of and are responsible for implementing the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge Nulhegan Basin Division Habitat Management Plan. At present, about fifty-five percent of Nulhegan Basin is a single age cohort, meaning the trees are the same age and the same height, a very atypical situation resulting from clear cutting. Quoting from the Plan, “Refuge management will focus on restoring, managing, or maintaining habitats or certain habitat conditions that will benefit the Division’s priority resources of concern and associated species, while maintaining the biological integrity, diversity, and environmental health of the natural communities unique to the basin…….The Division’s habitat management efforts will provide a range of forest succession, establish persistent upland herbaceous openings, maintain wetland and scrub-shrub habitat, promote healthy aquatic ecosystems, protect sensitive habitat and rare plants, and establish a sustainable balance of habitats that benefit priority resources of concern….Over the 15 year life of this plan conditions will change, requiring refuge staff to adapt their management as needed.”
Implementation and administration:
An INSPIRES Sensor
Photo Credit: USFWS
American Marten in Tree
Photo Credit: Vermont Fish and Wildlife
Research:
Refuge staff are involved in many ongoing local, regional, and national research projects, in collaboration with universities, institutes, and other organizations including:
INSPIRES (Leveraging Intelligent Informatics and Smart Data for Improved Understanding of Northern Forest Ecosystem Resilience) is a project funded by the National Science Foundation, which features a large, interdisciplinary team of scientists and educators across Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
Predicting Density and Occurrence of Keystone (Snowshoe hare) and Umbrella (American marten): Refuge staff are working with a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Vermont to identify and predict structural conditions that are critical for both snowshoe hare (early successional) and American marten (late successional). The landscape scale data will be used to directly inform forest management in the region
Eastern Woodcock Migration Research Cooperative Project: An international research collaboration led by the University of Maine to better understand the migratory ecology of the American woodcock along the Eastern seaboard
Functional Diversity, Rehabilitation and Ecosystem Service Resilience in the Northern Forest with UNH. The people involved are monitoring degraded forest stands on the Refuge, looking at vegetation composition, breeding birds, and small mammals. From their observations, they will create an index to reflect understanding of whether, if an area of forest is degraded, there is any decline in habitat being used by certain species, and if there is therefore a greater abundance of species in areas less degraded.
Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change under the direction of Professor Tony D’Amato of UVM, part of The Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change (ASCC) project. This is a collaborative effort to establish a series of experimental silvicultural trials across a network of different forest ecosystem types throughout the United States.
The research papers linked here are strictly limited to educational use, not for any commercial purpose whatsoever. The intent is just to help people learn about the research conducted on the Refuge.
Research Papers:
The research papers linked here are strictly limited to educational use, not for any commercial purpose whatsoever. The intent is just to help people learn about the research conducted on the Refuge.
Canada Warbler Habitat Use of Northern Hardwoods in Vermont
by Jameson F. Chace1,2,4,*, Steven D. Faccio3,5, and Abraham Chacko1
Geographic and Seasonal Variation in Mercury Exposure of the Declining Rusty Blackbird
Author(s): Samuel T. Edmonds, David C. Evers, Daniel A. Cristol, Claudia Mettke-Hofmann, Luke L. Powell, Andrew J. McGann, Jacob W. Armiger, Oksana P. Lane, David F. Tessler, Patti Newell, Kathryn Heyden and Nelson J. O'Driscoll
Source: The Condor, 112(4):789-799. 2010.
Published By: Cooper Ornithological Society
Lacustrine records of post-glacial environmental change from the Nulhegan Basin
by Jeffrey S. Munroe, Geology Department, Middlebury College
GLACIAL GEOLOGY OF THE NULHEGAN BASIN AREA
by Jeffrey S. Munroe, Geology Department, Middlebury College
To learn more about specific management goals for the Nulhegan Project Area, how climate change is expected to impact forest ecosystems in Vermont, the challenges and opportunities, and the adaptation actions being implemented through this Adaptive Silviculture project, check out The Climate Change Response Framework.
Students Monitor a Phenology Trail: Photo Credit: Chris Shaffer
Environmental Education:
Giving tours
Working with teachers and students from first grade through graduate school
Creating displays for the Visitor Contact Station
Creating and installing pollinator panels in the Visitor Contact Station pollinator garden to provide information about the importance of pollinators and steps landowners can take to improve pollinator habitat in their backyards.
Designing and installing interpretive panels along the Auto Tour Route to provide refuge visitors a better understanding of the biological, ecological, and historical importance of the Northeast Kingdom.
Creating “Conte Corner” at the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury, working with the Native Fish Coalition and the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, to educate the public about the unique ecosystem of the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge.
The Fairbanks Museum, home of The Conte Corner
Photo Credit: USFWS/ Guillermo Alvarez
Surveying and Monitoring:
The Refuge staff gathers data and monitors fish, animal, and plant populations on the Refuge on an ongoing basis. Refuge staff have developed an Inventory and Monitoring Plan for the Nulhegan Basin, Pondicherry and Blueberry Swamp Divisions. The plan includes achievable forest management objectives, associated inventory and monitoring priorities, and selection rationales.
In this photo , taken by Roger Irwin, USFWS Wildlife Biologist Rachel Cliche is setting out a digital sound player that plays 3 minutes of the cantus call of an aggressive female spruce grouse. If a male spruce grouse is in the area, he will respond by conducting a flutter flight. Rachel says the survey protocol is as follows: “The survey is conducted one-half hour before sunrise. I follow a transect through spruce-fir forest where I stop periodically (every 100 yards) to play the recording for 3 minutes. After the 3-minute recording, I listen for 30 seconds for the flutter flight of the male spruce grouse. I record the location and number of males at each stop (and make note of any females).“